pacino wrote:no, i asked soren why he is against RTW laws if he thinks unions do little to help wage growth. they seem like opposing viewpoints to hold. why be for unions if you don't think they help

That's still not exactly what I was saying. I'm asking if unions would have the same (in my perception positive) impact on the workforce as it exists today.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:

Soren wrote:Most of the job growth has been in industries that don't have unions though right? I don't like RTW but is there any evidence protecting unions is going to do much to bolster the middle class since our economy is moving away from manufacturing?

The vast majority of union jobs are not in manufacturing at this point. I would guess less than 5%.

Is that a function of the decreasing share of the workforce manufacturing has?

SK790 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Soren wrote:is there any evidence protecting unions is going to do much to bolster the middle class

I would love to see evidence.

Well, you could just look at wage equality vs union membership the last 60 years...

I'm more worried about how our spending on science is causing suicides by strangulation/suffocation.

swishnicholson wrote:

Soren wrote:Most of the job growth has been in industries that don't have unions though right? I don't like RTW but is there any evidence protecting unions is going to do much to bolster the middle class since our economy is moving away from manufacturing?

To my mind, the "right to work" movement is much less about destroying currently existing unions, though its sponsors certainly wouldn't mind that, as its an effort to stifle the growth of new ones. The effort to unionize service workers is not a new one, having been brought to the fore about twenty years ago. But it's still a nascent one, since it's minor gains have been more than offset by efforts to combat it. The focus behind these unions recognizes changes in the economy and seeks to address a growing class of workers and to establish them in middle class, rather than simply trying to hold on to a shrinking pool of workers in traditionally unionized work environments.

It's tough to break a union, but it's easier to stop one from ever taking hold in the first place, especially when part of your plug is to tell people that they'll receive all the benefits of a union by never signing up.

i think this is it. choking the flow of new signups and new shops, and then mandating that all the benefits and none of the costs (the very money that keeps the union going) go to non-union members in a shop, are the two successful tactics that have stifled growth of unions.

Werthless wrote:

SK790 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Soren wrote:is there any evidence protecting unions is going to do much to bolster the middle class

I would love to see evidence.

Well, you could just look at wage equality vs union membership the last 60 years...

I'm more worried about how our spending on science is causing suicides by strangulation/suffocation.

You really think there's no meaningful relationship between unions and wages or are you just being flippant?

Also, are those spending numbers adjusted for inflation?

Soren wrote:

Werthless wrote:

SK790 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Soren wrote:is there any evidence protecting unions is going to do much to bolster the middle class

I would love to see evidence.

Well, you could just look at wage equality vs union membership the last 60 years...

I'm more worried about how our spending on science is causing suicides by strangulation/suffocation.

You really think there's no meaningful relationship between unions and wages or are you just being flippant?

Short term, yes. A union can negotiate a better wage for the average person who is in that sector. Long-term, no, it's not a solution to raising living standards for the average person, and it's a depressingly simplistic answer to imply that the cause of wage stagnation is the decline of union membership and not macroeconomic factors.

Then the followup is do you believe that maintaining strong unions prevents us from addressing those macroeconomic factors?

If you re-read my post you'd note the word correlation. obviously there are large macroeconomic factors with how the economy has changed and how the rest of the world and its addition to the pool of workers has changed things; i just dont see how we have to devalue work as a result of this. i'd rather have slightly higher unemployment and a good social safety net than a free-for-all to try to compete with nations that are simply not worth competing against in regards to worker conditions/benefits/etc.

Using international diplomacy to strengthen overseas regulations coupled with a strong domestic respect for workers and working conditions can lift all boats, IMO. Looking at workers as purely a commodity is not something I enjoy. I don't believe that is a very realistic way with dealing with improving the lives of people.

Werthless wrote:

SK790 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Soren wrote:is there any evidence protecting unions is going to do much to bolster the middle class

I would love to see evidence.

Well, you could just look at wage equality vs union membership the last 60 years...

I'm more worried about how our spending on science is causing suicides by strangulation/suffocation.

Great false equivalency.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:

Soren wrote:Most of the job growth has been in industries that don't have unions though right? I don't like RTW but is there any evidence protecting unions is going to do much to bolster the middle class since our economy is moving away from manufacturing?

The vast majority of union jobs are not in manufacturing at this point. I would guess less than 5%.

Is that a function of the decreasing share of the workforce manufacturing has?

That and the biggest manufacturers like Boeing set up in RTW states to pay lower wages.

pacino wrote:

SK790 wrote:Agreed, as much as I love the Bernie pipe dream, it's not gonna happen. I don't think I can bring myself to vote for Hillary, tho.

Then get used to saying President Bush or President Walker.

Washington will be blue regardless

Phan In Phlorida wrote:Those strawberries look like homicide victims.

True. I would want some big gay ice cream with that cake. Or, I guess, some You Matter Ice Cream.

Werthless wrote:Unions are helpful in raising the cost of labor above the market clearing price of that labor. For supporters, that's a virtue, as it changes the relative negotiating power of labor and employer, and supporters are happy to see higher wages/benefits. For opponents of unions, it raises unemployment by restricting the supply of labor at a given price, while also raising the cost of the goods provided by the union. That may or may not be an acceptable tradeoff.

you only have to look at the vocabulary of your position to understand that the strongest part of your 'explanation' of the influence of unions is the last sentence.

swap "business association" for union and you have an 'enterprise' that 'raises the cost' of production 'above market clearing prices of " whatever input you wish to name there.

No one "forces" anyone to compete - you compete if you choose to compete. Oh, you're not good enough to compete with production conditions your entire market of consumers insists you find a way to contend with? Fuck you, dolphin killer. Cigarette peddler. Seatbelt non-installer.

Said another way, your cautions are both obvious, and mostly beside the point.

The Secretary of Energy is on the Daily Show right now.
I am very impressed by that Ernest Moniz's hair!

Happy Election Day in the UK. Polls open in 10 minutes.

Labour and the Conservatives are neck and neck in the polls. If things follow the polls, Ed Miliband, who is hard to find a comparison for in American politician world in both awkwardness and ideology, will be prime minister. The SNP are in line to win at least 50 seats, and they are very much opposed to another Conservative government. If Labour and the Conservatives end up in the same neighborhood in seats, it's basically impossible for Cameron to get another term as PM. Miliband is not a natural politician and is pretty left leaning, but the economic recovery has been slow and uneven over there so Cameron is in a lot of trouble (tho the economy is not as bad as in other parts of Europe). If Labour's leader was more likable, this would probably be a rout. Cameron faces a lot of pressure on his right flank on Europe issues, and UKIP is sucking up 12ish percent of the vote, which makes things really tough for the Tories in the swing seats.

There's a decent reason to anticipate the polls being wrong, as almost every time there's an election in the UK Labour is overestimated and the Conservatives are underestimated. If Cameron can win by more than a couple percent in the national vote, his seat total might get to the point where he can put together another coalition with the Lib Dems or roll the dice on some minority government. The odds of who will be next PM is straight up tied in the betting markets, which is crazy to me looking at the polls. Seems like Labour is comfortably in the driver's seat, but I guess people have been burned before counting out the Tories based on polls. You'd think that's something that could be adjusted for, but we'll see.

Jerz, I don't even bother reading "news" accounts of UK politics anymore ; I just wait for you and/or Wiz to explain it to me. Quicker, newsier, more accurate.

So Cameron may be a UK Netanyahu?

And how about the results in Alberta?

Speaking of 'foreign' politics, that Tommy Cotton's shaping up as quite the pepperpot,ain't he?

turns out millionaires consider themselves middle class

Even those Americans worth $5 million or more—among the wealthiest 5 percent—still think of themselves as more middle class than wealthy. According to the survey, 49 percent of those worth $5 million or more define themselves as upper middle class, while 23 percent define themselves as middle class. Only 11 percent of the $5-million-plus millionaires define themselves as rich or wealthy.

Studies show that more than three-quarters of today's millionaires made their money themselves and started out in the middle class or lower. Wealth experts say these self-made millionaires may still see themselves as having middle-class values of hard work, humility and family despite their increased wealth.

Today's wealthy, like many Americans, also look up the economic ladder when comparing themselves to others rather than down. And the super rich are far outpacing millionaires when it comes to wealth creation, making the mere millionaires feel like the middle class by comparison.


A study last year by Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Gabriel Zucman, assistant professor at the London School of Economics and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, found that those in the bottom half of the top 1 percent have seen their national wealth remain flat for the past 20 years. But the 0.01 percent—or those worth more than $100 million—have seen their share of wealth more than double since 1995, from around 5 percent to just under 12 percent.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/vid ... rits-video

Thought this was pretty handy summary.

What's most interesting to me is that even though Britain has a "first past the post" system like the US, which mathematically would normally (and has in past) result in party stability we've now seen the two party system crack up.

drsmooth wrote:Jerz, I don't even bother reading "news" accounts of UK politics anymore ; I just wait for you and/or Wiz to explain it to me. Quicker, newsier, more accurate.

So Cameron may be a UK Netanyahu?

And how about the results in Alberta?

a liberal electd in Alberta!!! WOWSERS
it was a good 40 year run for the conservatives.. The NDP's slow rise in Canada is really interesting to watch. It made inroads in Quebec, now in Alberta.

in any event, conservative paper in Canada says they werent REALLY conservative

no, the NDP will not ruin Alberta; it may save it from itself